A customer places an order at the drive-thru menu board at a McDonald's in Newark, N.J. New federal rules require calorie counts on menus, not only at large restaurant chains, but also at grocery stores, gas stations, convenience stores, movie theaters, sports stadiums and amusement parks.

“Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.”

– Thomas Jefferson (1781)

It has been five years since the Affordable Care Act was passed, and critics contended that if the government had the power to force Americans to purchase health insurance, what was to stop it from forcing everyone to eat broccoli? Now, if one wants to buy some broccoli salad at the supermarket deli, a lesser-known Obamacare provision will require the store to post the salad’s calorie count.

In December, after more than three years of deliberation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration fulfilled the requirements of an Obamacare provision when it finalized its new menu labeling rules. The 138 pages of regulations – which include everything right down to font size and colors – require calorie count information to be affixed to food items or posted on menus. They apply not only to large restaurant chains, but also to grocery stores, gas stations, convenience stores, movie theaters, even vending machines that offer prepared food.

In addition to being yet another unnecessary nanny state nuisance, these regulations come with real costs. According to the Food Marketing Institute, a food retailer trade association, the regulations initially will cost up to $1 billion. That is an enormous hit, particularly to the grocery industry, where businesses operate with an average profit margin of 1 percent, and will lead to fewer fresh fruit and vegetable options, higher prices and more food waste.

To lighten the regulatory burden, Reps. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., have introduced H.R. 2017, which would exempt retail food establishments that derive less than half of their revenue from the sale of prepared foods, offer flexibility in how calorie information is displayed and allow businesses 90 days to correct any violations.

“Menu labeling represents one example of a regulation that threatens to impose significant costs on consumers and small businesses without delivering meaningful value to the public,” Rep. Sanchez wrote after she introduced similar legislation in 2013.

She is absolutely correct – not only about the costs, but also about the fruitlessness of menu labeling laws. A 2009 study published in Health Affairs analyzing the effects of a menu labeling law in New York City concluded: “[W]e did not find evidence in our sample that menu labeling influenced the total number of calories purchased at the population level. … Even those who indicated that the calorie information influenced their food choices did not actually purchase fewer calories.”

Legislation such as H.R. 2017 is a positive step, but it does not go nearly far enough. Not only are menu labeling mandates unwarranted infringements on store owners’ business practices, paternalistic intrusions on citizens’ personal lives and unconstitutional expenditures of public funds to enforce the rules, but they also have proven to be totally ineffective. All the more reason to eliminate them altogether.

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